What's missing
by Sel-1412
Summary: There are moment in the world of Full Metal Alchemist, in which we really hoped characters would act in a different way or anything that was going on in our heads was not mentioned in the series. This story is to show at least the scenes, I myself missed.
1. Would be you, Riza

Chapter One: ... would be you, Riza!

"Sir", Lieutenant Hawkeye said, angrily enough to make sure he would get the truth this time. "May I speak freely?" As if he knew, she would do so anyway, he made a quick hand movement, but didn't think of looking at her while she was speaking to him. This fact made Hawkeye even more angry. "How can you be so ignorant, Colonel? I really thought you were a man of honor, a man who was ready to risk everything to make little things seem a bit better. When did you stop to think of other people?" Actually, Mustang was prepared to hear her saying something like this, but hearing it for real was different than just imagining it. "I changed my mind. You may not speak freely." He turned away from the window and sat down on his desk chair, taking some papers and starting to write, pretending that he had better things to do.

Hawkeye looked at him for a moment, not believing what he just said. Did he really close his eyes and ears to live in this little world of his own? That was impossible and he knew that. If he didn't understand that he was in a position in which he first had to think of his men and after that of himself, he wouldn't be able to become what he once seemed to deserve: Fuhrer.

After being so quiet for a few seconds now, Mustang raised his head and gave her a quick glimpse. "You may go, Lieutenant." Hawkeye took a deep breath and tried to calm down over this arrogance of her direct supervisor, but she wasn't able to do so. His pride and this lack of interest made her questioning her latest decisions of following his orders. "Sir", she said with a last bit of control. Then, she left the room.

Mustang followed her with his eyes for a few seconds. Realizing what he just did, he leaned back in his chair and laid his hand in front of his eyes, sighing. He already could feel that he made a big mistake in talking to her like that. It would have been fine with anyone else, but not with her.

At the next morning, he was sitting at his desk once again, when Lieutenant Hawkeye entered the room without knocking on the door first. Mustang jumped up of his chair and seemed to be relieved. "Lieutenant! I wanted to talk to you, actually." Hawkeye nodded and came to his desk, some papers in her hands. While he was talking to her, she didn't think of stopping her steps. Just as he hadn't looked at her the day before when she had been talking to him. "Yesterday, things were said of which we both are not very proud, I assume. But I really think..." Before he could say anything more, Hawkeye stood in front of him, holding the papers towards him. "What is that?", he asked unsure of the answer and if he wanted to know it. Hawkeye didn't say a word, so he had to take and read over the papers. With every word his eyes went bigger and the serenity, he often seemed to have brought to perfection, left him. After he finished reading, he raised his head and looked at Hawkeye, as if she had stabbed him with a dagger. "Transfer...?" Hawkeye nodded. "I won't be under your command any longer." With cold politeness she continued, "I hope you find, what you are looking for, Colonel. Goodbye." She turned around to leave the room, hearing Mustang's now nervous voice speaking to her. "You can't possibly be serious, Hawkeye. Riza! You can't be serious." "I am", she answered him shortly.

When she had reached the door and grabbed the knob to open it, Mustang finally realized that he had to be honest with her now or never. "Riza! Wait!" She stood still. Waiting for a statement on his strange behavior. "You said, I didn't care of other people than me." "Yes." "Well", he took a breath and didn't move his eyes from her, not even for one second, "and what about the fact that I care about you and need you here by my side?"

The Lieutenant's eyes widened. She told herself that she might have misunderstood it, just to not turn all red. "Riza", his voice called her again. He hadn't moved, just stood there like a little child, so helpless. "You _can't_ leave me!" He recognized that she still hadn't moved as well. "_Please_", he begged her one last time, hoping she wouldn't just go through this door. Hoping, this wasn't the last moment with her.

And Hawkeye just stood there with her eyes wide open and thought about this feeling he gave her with this weak voice of his. He really wasn't as strong as he always pretended to be. And if it was true, what he said, he really didn't only think of himself. Before she could realize how much she meant to him, he once again tried to reach her with his from hesitancy shaking voice. "Don't leave me..." She couldn't. And she had never planned to. Smiling, she turned around to him. He was obviously confused by her face, but on the other hand it seemed to make him feel better for a moment. "Look at the signature, Colonel", was all Hawkeye said. After a few seconds, in which Mustang tried to look as confident as possible, he did what she said and took a look at the signature of her transfer papers. He stumbled and seemed to talk to himself. "No signature at all...?" When Hawkeye started to laugh a bit, he raised his head quickly and looked at her again. "That's right. It's a blank check, so to speak."

While she seemed to be very amused by this situation, laughing to herself, he laid the papers on his desk and went straight towards, only to fasten his steps shortly before her, grab her and lay his arms around her, as if she had returned from a war. Hawkeye widened her eyes once again. "Colonel?", she said, now finally blushing. Mustang didn't seem as amused as her. "Don't do that _ever_ again. You hear me? _Ever_." Hawkeye couldn't help but smiling again and answered his movement with a hug. "Yes, Sir."


	2. Is the friend by my side

Chapter Two: ... is the friend by my side!

For one whole hour Roy Mustang hadn't been able to work properly. His thoughts were somewhere else, anywhere but in the here and now. He was staring on the clock fronting his desk, as if under a spell, and tipped with two fingers in the pulse of the sweep hand. Riza Hawkeye was only in the same room with him for about half an hour, so she had not witnessed him for the whole midmorning. Lieutenant Havoc had. "Colonel, please", escaped his mouth a bit crispy. Mustang did not seem to care. And he did not think about staying calm, instead he had enough. He stood up, grabbed his coat, threw it around his shoulders unwary and left the room with a "Have a nice evening!". Hawkeye and Havoc gave each other a short glimpse, before they jumped up and followed him.

"Colonel!", Hawkeye screamed after him very unladylike, but he didn't think of stopping. "You can abandon me for the last half hour, for sure." "But, Colonel!" "Hawkeye!" He looked at her very strictly, whereupon she silenced immediately. "I do", he started and had to swallow. "I _have_ to go now. It's about my promise." When she recognized his shaking look, Riza took a breath and nodded. She understood. She had almost forgotten about this. "Well, see you tomorrow then, Sir." "Yes." Mustang turned around and left the building through the main entrance. Havoc's eyes followed him confused. "His promise?" "Yes." Hawkeye was still looking at the heavy doors of the entry, when she told Havoc what was going on with their superior. "It's the anniversary of his death." Havoc gulped quickly. So that was it...

It was late summer, which is why the sun hadn't set yet at this early evening and why Mustang lightened himself of some jackets, before he was in danger to choke. "I'm so free", he smiled, when he laid down his coat and the jacket of his uniform next to the tombstone of Hughes. After that he stretched extensively and set down in front of the grave of his old friend. "Here I am", he mumbled and thought for a second. "I don't even know what you want to hear." But directly after this, he scored out this sentence in his mind and smiled weakly. "Sorry." As if it was clear now, what his friend would like to hear about, he started from the beginning, while he braced himself on one arm and gestured with the other one. "Probably this is nothing to wonder about for you. But Elysia is getting more beautiful each day. Which means, of course, she takes after her mother." For a moment he imagined the face of Hughes, until he corrected his imagination and saw him smiling. As always. In the end, he had loved his daughter and his wife, so he would obviously agree with Mustang. "And Gracia is fine as well, as far as I know. I'm sorry, I know I promised to look out for her, but to be honest... If I go to her too often, people will talk about us." He had to laugh a bit for a moment when he thought about how people would gossip viciously about them, just because he cared for the wife of his dead friend on a very platonic level. But his laughter left him when he thought about the fact that he actually didn't mind of the things they said about him.

He needed a moment. He felt this awkward pressure in his throat, that made him believe, when he started to say something the next time, he would not be able to give any sound. To clear it out somehow, he took a deep breath and closed his eyes for a few seconds. When he opened them again, the first thing they saw was Hughes' name on the headstone. "Damn it", Mustang sighed and laid his hand in front of his eyes, and looked back to the stone afterwards, so stressed out, as if the marble had hurt him. "Am I to tell you, what you are doing to me, you idiot?" He took a look from left to right, then starred back to Hughes' name and became strikingly louder. "A sweet little girl that asks me, if I have seen you anywhere, every time I stop by! Do you know what a terrible feeling that is? Gracia already doesn't know how to explain it to her anymore, that you..." His breath had stalled and the words, he was about to say, disappeared as if they had never existed. Not before a moment, in which he had calmed himself down, he could and wanted to say them, to make them clear once again. "That you won't come back..." His eyes became unsteady and he had to look away from Hughes' name for a moment, to bear with keep sitting here.

"I don't know why this is still so hard for me." He quickly wiped his eyes dry with his thumb and his finger and saw back to the headstone. "It's just that I really could need you by my side right now." Mustang's look became a bit more calm again, almost relaxed, as if the dash of sorrow had gone. In his place, there was a mixture of anger and disappointment. "Why didn't you tell me? Didn't you trust me enough?" He corrected himself directly after these thoughts. "No." It was ridiculous. Hughes and he had been best friends, of course he had trusted him. "You wanted to protect me? Maes, you damn idiot." A bit stressed he kicked the headstone with his right foot, but less violently, more teasingly, as if he wanted to make him answer. "There, that's what you deserve. And you know what? Maybe I'm gonna visit your wife more often, as a punishment. What do you think?" Imagining Hughes' laughter again, he couldn't help but to smile. Until something came into his mind. "Oh yeah!" He crawled to his coat, that he laid next to the tombstone, and took something out of the pocket. "Elysia asked me to take this with me and give it to you. She must've forgotten about it the last time she was here." He enfolded a piece of paper and it was presented this cute picture again that Hughes' daughter had drawn with so much love. Mustang laid it down on the grave and put a little stone at its bottom, so it wouldn't be gone with the wind so quickly. "See? That's Elysia, Gracia, Hawkeye and me... and this thing up there is supposed to be you." He smiled kindly. "She did draw you wings." He smirked and scratched his head. "You know, she still thinks you will come back, but Gracia's talks of Daddy being in heaven and an angel now has totally confused the poor girl." He thought of something. "Oh!" He pointed on the little people that were meant to be him and the others. "And she said, we're waving to you. If you can't tell."

While he was still holding his finger onto the paper, he sighed and hoped his friend could see it for real. Confidently, a smile darted over his lips when a good idea came to him. Again, he lent back on one arm and looked up to the bright sky. After that he didn't do anything more than raising his other arm and waving with it. Just that. "See, Maes? Your daughter is a very forsighted kid." After a few seconds he stood up, threw a last look on the grave and decided to go home now. "I'm going to come back next week. I would say _All the best_, but this is not that kind of anniversary, I guess." But what of it! It was a day on which he always would come back here, to his best friend. So, something good. That's why he should think about is as something positive. "Fine", he said quietly. "All the best, my friend."


End file.
